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A vote on an amendment to help small businesses by shifting $79 million from other accounts to the Small Business Administration's guaranteed lending program, to help keep fees assessed to lenders and borrowers at current rates. (2004 house Roll Call 328)

A vote on an amendment to help small businesses by shifting $79 million from other accounts to the Small Business Administration's guaranteed lending program, to help keep fees assessed to lenders and borrowers at current rates.

Progressives in the House prevailed 281-137, helping to advance an amendment offered by Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), to the FY05 Commerce, Justice, State spending bill (H.R. 4754), over the objections of conservative members, who complained it was a "fatally flawed" measure better suited to the "Cold War" era. Manzullo's stated objective in offering the amendment was to help small businesses by shifting $79 million from other accounts to the Small Business Administration "7(a)" flagship guaranteed lending program, to help keep fees assessed to lenders and borrowers at current rates. Without the amendment, Manzullo insisted, small business borrowers and lenders will face a fee or tax increase based on the amount of loans starting Oct. 1, 2005, by as much as 100 percent. Conservatives argued, however, that the reallocation of this money to the SBA would drain critical federal resources needed to fight what President Bush has designated the war on terrorism. They were especially concerned that the amendment would cut by a little over $10 million funding for the National Endowment For Democracy, a controversial organization set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan to "support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts," but which critics say is nothing more than a costly program that takes U.S. taxpayer funds to promote dictatorial regimes abroad. While affirming their support for the SBA 7(a) program, conservatives also balked at $60 million in cuts the amendment would require of the Justice Department, another agency spearheading the Bush administration's anti-terror efforts. One conservative in opposing the proposal said, "If my colleagues believe that the cold war still exists, they could probably make an argument for this amendment. This is crazy at this time to act like somehow this is pre-September 11."